Marie Tierney

Třináctiletá Ava je jiná než ostatní děti. Je posedlá rozkladem mrtvých zvířat. Na dálnici, u níž bydlí, pravidelně nachází mršiny a Ava nemá nic radši, než když si svůj nejnovější nález může zatáhnout do své skrýše u silnice, prozkoumat a zaznamenat. Jenže jedné noci najde tělo svého spolužáka a v obavě, že by její tajná záliba mohla být odhalena, anonymně zavolá na policii. Případ sice dostane na starost detektiv Delahaye, ale Ava nehodlá jen nečinně přihlížet – ne když se v jejím ospalém městečku začínají ztrácet další teenageři.

DISCOVER THE GRIPPING 2024 BRITISH CRIME NOVEL EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT Thirteen-year-old Ava Bonney is different. While her friends play, Ava searches for roadkill. She knows studying animal decomposition is an unusual hobby, but Ava doesn't care what other people think. Then, one night, when Ava sneaks out to find a fox, she instead stumbles upon the body of Mickey Grant. Despite his many years in the police, Detective Seth Delahaye has never seen a murder case like this one - as though the victim was set upon by a wild animal. Nor has he met anyone quite like Ava: so determined, resourceful and . . . unusual. And when another boy goes missing, he has no idea that Ava will become his secret weapon in the hunt for a killer.

Thirteen-year-old Ava Bonney is unlike other children. Exceptionally bright, she has an obsessive interest in the rate at which dead animals decompose. The motorway she lives by regularly offers up roadkill, and in the dead of night Ava likes nothing better than to pull her latest discovery into her roadside den so she can study it. But one day when she arrives she stumbles across the body of fellow pupil, Mickey Grant. DI Seth Delahaye is given the case, one of the most challenging of his career. But Ava is not the sort of person who will step back and let someone else take charge when children like her are dying. She uses all her unusual skills and deep local knowledge to try to track down the serial killer in her community.